I dedicate this post to the legion of people who have ever compared me to a pedophile, an alcoholic, or an adulterer. I know I’ve told you these comparisons aren’t worth discussing. I know you thought I was just being emotional. I know these seem like helpful comparisons. Well, you’ve finally convinced me to talk about it. This one’s for you.

These analogies come from the search to explain why same-sex relationships are a sin. I had a real exchange with a Baptist pastor that went like this:

Him: “How is homosexuality different than any other sin?”

Me: “How is it the same?”

And this is at the core of the matter. Does same-sex love pass the sin test? Does homosexuality belong on the sin list? Or should we take it off? That’s the point of analogies. To show how it belongs on the list. Every single one of the sins listed below is something to which my sexuality has been compared.

Bestiality

First, there’s the super obvious that having sex with an animals is nothing like a real connection with a human being.

Beyond that, I’ve spoken to people who have sex with animals. It’s one of the more unique aspects of doing intakes in juvenile corrections. You probably won’t be surprised to discover that the process is nothing like falling in love. It’s a sexual perversion, a type of addiction actually, that generally begins with pornography addiction at a young age that transitions to animal porn and then to acting out.

True sex addiction can escalate as people search for more and more deviant behaviors, the forbidden nature of which can bring them new excitement so they can get their chemical fix. That’s what bestiality is.

Pedophilia

This is a criminal act of assault on a child. Pedophilia involves sex not only with a minor (that’s statutory rape), but with a prepubescent child. I’ve interviewed many teens who have histories of assaulting children and treated many teens who were sexually assaulted as children.

Pedophilia causes serious emotional consequences for the victim if not properly supported and treated. It confuses them about what love is because they are being exploited in their first sexual experience. For the perpetrator, it’s by nature an avoidance of intimacy and not an embrace of relationships, because adults can’t have a intimate partnerships with children.

It’s amazing to me that I even have to explain these things, but such is the nature of homophobia. I have no problem using the word homophobia to describe people who can’t tell the difference between pedophilia and same-sex relationships.

Queer relationships are partnerships. We coined the application of the word “partner” for intimate relationships when we were legally barred from marriage. It works because it expresses the nature of our relationships. They are not exploitation; they are partnerships.

There is also a long history of non-affirming Christians accusing LGBT people of being pedophiles. Google “Anita Bryant” if you don’t believe me. Fortunately, because of the hard work and sacrifice of gay activists, this slur is dying out, but it’s certainly still around.

Incest

Incest violates an already established kinship relationships between two people, generally that of siblings or that of parent and child. You can’t stop being someone’s brother or someone’s mother. Violating this primary and foundation relationships in order to establish a romantic relationships is an attack on the entire family. I’ve also counseled families in this situation, and it’s a mess.

Of course, normalizing such relationships in society would also lead to genetic problems. Yet even if in an individual case that were not an issue, there is a sacredness to our family relationships, to be someone’s brother, sister, mother, or father is a rare and important place in someone’s life. It’s incompatible with sexual or romantic relationships, because it involves a special level of closeness but also the ability to separate and form new families.

Of course same-sex relationships do not threaten any previously established relationship. Also, normalizing same-sex relationships causes no threat to society in terms of child birth. The accusation that the inability to have children is a threat to the human population is unjustified.

Only about 5% of the population is LGB. Even if 5% of people married someone of the same gender, half the couples would be able to have children with artificial insemination. That would leave 2.5% of the population, male couples, who often adopt children who need a home.

So there is no risk to society there either, if anything it’s an advantage for children who need adoption. Besides, what do you want gay men to do? Marry your daughter?

Divorce

Divorce is the result of a broken relationship and a failure of fidelity that was once promised. It’s falling out of love, the painful failure of love, and a tragedy whether it happens to other-sex couples or same-sex couples couples. Divorce is the opposite, not the analogy, of two people of the same-gender falling in love.

There is one way in which there are similarities between the two, though. Both have historically been viewed an forbidden by the church on biblical grounds. So why has the view on divorce changed?

Jesus himself explicitly forbade divorce on any grounds but infidelity when he was asked explicitly about the subject. It’s quite remarkable that the church found a way to accept divorce as a regrettable but sometimes unavoidable aspect of life, but there is no room for reconsidering same-sex relationships. I’m guessing that things would be different if same-sex relationships directly effected the same number of people that divorce directly effects.

Alcoholism and Other Drug Addiction

Addiction is a compulsive substance use in order to attain a high. It involves increasing use of a substance, tolerance, withdrawal, and normally leads to an obsession with obtaining and using the drug.

This obsession causes the addict to lie, cheat, steal, and generally mistreat the people in his or her life. Addictions are often a way to escape from the reality of life. Queer relationships are not marked by such behavior any more than straight relationships are.

Yes, people can also become addicted to sex. Yes, sometimes the people who become addicted to sex are queer though usually they’re straight. No, that doesn’t mean the ex-gay person giving you the testimony at the non-affirming church about his gay sex addiction is representative of all gay people.

Non-affirming churches too often find gay sex addicts who have found God and say they left the “gay lifestyle.” Really they just left their sex addiction.

Same-sex couples get married, have children, raise families, and even if they don’t choose to do those things, reducing same-sex love to addiction is untrue and prejudicial. When non-affirming churches refuse to acknowledge this reality, and only share stories of broken and addicted LGBT people, they encourage bigotry.

Porn Addiction

Sometimes people think it’s kind to disclose to me their pornography addiction as a way to show they don’t think they’re better than me. As if to say, “See, we all struggle. I have a porn addiction I have to give to God, and you have your homosexuality. If I can do it you can do it!”

I know from their perspective they are showing solidarity, that they don’t demonize homosexuality, and that that homosexuality is not the worst of sins. But someone’s obsession with getting off to images of women they will never meet has no commonality to me falling in love with a woman I know in real life.

When someone tells me about how they compulsively objectify women for sexual gratification, it feels dirty. I don’t want to know. It has nothing to do with love and commitment to an actual human standing before you.

Selfishness

“Gay love is selfish. When you fall in love with someone of your same gender, instead of a different gender like God intended, you’re falling in love with yourself.”

Yep. I’ve heard this one too. Multiple times. This is a favorite of preachers.

They say that in opposite-sex relationships people are falling in love with someone who is a different gender, therefore they are loving the other. But in same-sex relationships they are the same gender, therefore they are loving themselves.

But no matter what the gender configuration, when you love another human being, you love another human being. I’m not sure why I need to say this, because it seems obvious, but people of the same gender are still completely different human beings. There’s not some weird para-scientific Freudian thing going on here. Same-sex couples, just like opposite couples, fall in love with each other both for similarities and for differences, and when they do fall in love and have sex, it’s not a solo activity.

Having a friend of the same gender is not having a friendship with yourself. Going into business with someone of your gender is not a sole prorietorship.

If the differences between two people matter in these less intimate relationships, they will only be more magnified in an intimate relationships. Relationships are hard because they expose selfishness and demand selflessness, that doesn’t change for same-gender couples. So can we stop using this crazy analogy? Please?

Broken Straight Sexuality

“We need to address homosexuality in the context of our own broken sexuality as straight people.”

I hate to admit this, but I used to think this one was humble and compassionate, and in some contexts it is a move in that direction. It’s a way of saying that I’m no better than you just because you’re queer and I’m straight.

There is a world of difference between people who make the bestiality comparison and people who talk about their own broken sexuality. I know the heart that this comparison often comes from, and it’s a desire to not be bigoted and hateful, but compassionate and caring. I can appreciate that heart even as I critique the comparison itself.

Broken straight sexuality, no matter what form it comes in, is still demonstrably harmful. Broken straight sexuality is not love, but a failure of love. By its very nature, it’s those things that draw straight people away from their partners, not towards them. It’s exploitation, selfishness, and degrading of relationships. Same-sex love is not degrading of relationships, it is the establishment of a relationship.

Sin

There is a reason none of the analogies work. They are comparing something that is sin to something that is not sin. They compare something selfish, harmful, and addictive to something good, holy, and loving.

I challenge Christians to be more cautious in using these analogies, and more cautious in making any reference to same-sex love as sin. Calling sinful something that is holy is destructive and sinful itself.

Are you really so certain that you are willing to risk causing harm by telling someone their love is sin? What if you’re wrong? What will your words cost others? What relationships do you stand to damage? What love could you be denying or discouraging?

The way I have interpreted scripture, particularly the six verses used against same-sex relationships, fits perfectly with Jesus’ understanding of the law. The way non-affirming Christians interpret these laws does not. The reasoning doesn’t fit, the analogies are ill conceived, and the results are prejudicial. Maybe there is a reason for that? Maybe there is a reason none of the analogies fit?

The truth is that love between people of the same gender, even sexual love, even romantic love, even passionate partnership, does not meet the criteria of sin. It’s nothing like sin. It’s everything like love, because it is love. And love is the core nature of God, the foundation of the law, and the most wonderful thing in the world.

5 comments

Is there any loving relationships that should not be sexually engaged in? Im thinking polyamorous or polygamy, polyandry… And it seems that love is to be to governed by truth, not the other way around. Lastly I was thinking about God…the implications of male/female relationships upon his Glory and understanding in the world. How does heterosexuality show (or shine) God or homosexuality for that matter?

Thanks for the write up, certainly much to think about and discuss. Appreciate it!

The Bible didn’t seem to think polygamy was wrong. As far as polyamory, I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve realized that the experience of being rejected by the church for something I know to be good and holy has changed the way I relate to people. I no longer want to try and change or cast judgment on other people’s sexual choices when those choices do no exploit or endanger anyone. I want to help people be better followers of the Jesus way, and I trust them and to figure that out with Jesus.

This is especially true because I personally have no desire for any type of polyamorous relationship. It’s just not how I’m made. So it would cost me nothing to condemn them. I’ve been condemned by a lot of straight people for whom it cost nothing, people who have no idea what my struggle has been. I don’t want to do that to someone else. Does that make sense?

If what you are looking for is a clear set of rules to be applied to everyone about what their sexual behavior should be, you’re not going to find me advocating any such thing. I understand why people could be uncomfortable with that, and why they would disagree, but that’s where I’ve come on the issue.

I do find that queer relationships reflect God with startling beauty. From God we learn that love is worth the sacrifice, that it’s worth fighting for, and that it’s legitimacy goes way beyond questions of whether religious leaders accept it. Here’s a post I wrote on how queer love reflects the love of God: http://aliciajohnston.com/2017/06/02/godsloveisqueer/

Thanks for the response, and I apologize for just noticing it! I certainly appreciate your clarity on such positions. I do disagree with them today, but there was a time that I was right there with you. I enjoy conversing about these subjects and certainly can agree to disagree in a nice way. That in itself is a lost art today! If you are ever interested in being on a Podcast with me discussing some of your writing with those that very kindly disagree let me know. It would be fun to chat.

Gosh, thanks for this one. It makes my blood boil when people make these comparisons. I mean, i agree too that i used to think it was compassionate to argue that we’re all in the same boat, sin is sin. But it really just doesn’t make sense and is hurtful. I appreciate your work on this!

I kind of stopped reading after your passage about Zoophilia had it all wrong. (unless you are making a difference between the two in which case nice Texas sharpshooter fallacy).
I think that what you don’t get is that for whatever sexual identity/behavior you will always find people who will say they have felt it to their core since they were young, that they didn’t choose, and that it is consensual and non-violent.
Conversely you can always find a group that engages into a sexual behavior because of trauma or malicious reasons.

By the way you hardly circumvented the selfishness argument. If trangenderism is a thing, the Biological dimorphism is a thing. Hence in a same-sex relationship you are loving someone whose very being and biology (not to add gender or social role etc..) is closer to yours than if you were in a heterosexed relationship. I’m not sure you can have transgenderism and eat it too.